VICTORIA — For some reason Community Development Minister Bill Bennett thought his political trials and tribulations were an apt topic for his first major address to local government leaders since being reappointed to cabinet earlier this month.

Nobody else attending the annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities Wednesday afternoon thought so. The main hall in the Victoria conference centre was as quiet as a wake while Bennett held forth on his ins and outs with the B.C. Liberals and his hopes that they can rescue their political fortunes.

To be sure, the Bennett saga can be a lively one. I milked it myself for a speech at a UBCM reception Monday and Bennett was a good enough sport to sit through the whole thing laughing.

But this was neither the time nor place for provincial government’s main ministerial liaison to local government to get personal or political.

Municipal leaders can play the political game if they have to, but in general prefer to keep the relationship with the province on a businesslike footing.

Bennett just couldn’t let it go. The Liberal party name “is not my first choice.” The harmonized sales tax was “one real doozy of a mistake.” Delegates should not give in “to that siren call: ‘time for a change.’ ”

Even when he got to talking about local concerns — “enough of my politics, time for your politics” — he launched into an unwelcome message that they should rein in spending and hold the line in settling contracts with their workers.

On the plus side, the best he could do was a pledge to maybe enact electoral reform in time for municipal campaigns in 2014, and commit that if the Liberals ever do get back to funding infrastructure, they will first consult the locals on what should be funded.

The latter drew a rare burst of applause, half-sarcastic one assumes, given the “money is going to be tight forever” tone of the rest of the speech.

He closed with one more exhortation that delegates should not vote for you-know-who next year, lest they put the credit rating at risk, ruin the investment climate and open up B.C. to all manner of “social engineering.” (Cloning? Cyborgs?)

With that he was done, and given the downbeat tone of the speech, one was left wondering if maybe his government was done as well.

Outside the hall, the Liberals were busy organizing the release of some genuinely good news, the tentative reaching of a two-year contract with the B.C. Nurses’ Union.

But the presiding government member, Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, arrived only half-briefed. For instance, she did not know when the contract would take effect.

One would not necessarily expect the health minister to know such things because labour matters are with the jobs ministry and contract negotiations are handled by the ministry of finance.

As it happened, Finance Minister Mike de Jong strolled through the hall just after MacDiarmid finished speaking, leaving reporters to wonder why she’d been pressed into service in the first place.

Clumsy are the ways of the B.C. Liberals these days and the tone is being set from the top.

In the midst of other events Wednesday, Premier Christy Clark’s office released a letter to Alberta Premier Alison Redford, seeking to pursue a dialogue on the proposed Northern Gateway oil pipeline.

The letter restated B.C.’s five conditions for supporting the proposal to pipe Alberta crude through B.C. to tidewater at Kitimat. There was also a conciliatory clarification on this province’s insistence on a bigger share of the fiscal and economic benefits from the project.

“It is important to note that my government has not placed any conditions on these discussions,” wrote Clark. “While others may have characterized this conversation as somehow sharing Alberta’s royalty payments, we have been careful to avoid discussing the source of any benefit sharing, or indeed the very nature of any increased benefits to B.C.”

Good move. But the contents were briefly overshadowed by the weird handling of the letter itself. When B.C. reporters contacted Redford’s office for reaction, they were advised that no copy had arrived.

Only after some back and forth, did it turn out that Clark’s office had simply emailed the missive to the inbox of the Alberta premier’s office, where it was presumably languishing alongside routine invitations for Redford to preside at, say, a pancake breakfast in Okotoks.

In which regard, the B.C. premier closed her letter with a half-half-hearted invitation to her Alberta counterpart: “I expect to be in Calgary early next week, should you wish to discuss this issue further.”

Why was the B.C. premier headed for Calgary? Turns out she would be addressing a class of students at the University of Calgary public policy school, the same institution where Ken Boessenkool, her ousted chief of staff, once toiled as an executive fellow.

As the day ended Wednesday, the press gallery was awaiting word on the extent to which Premier Redford would be clearing her schedule for some face time with her B.C. counterpart.

But given the amateurish ways of the Clark government, a pancake breakfast in Okotoks might be a more productive use of Redford’s time.

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